There's no way to know if this influenced it but Anonymous threatened Sony on Youtube [youtube.com] (transcript here [playstationlifestyle.net] and a few more specifics here [playstationlifestyle.net]) the other day. Of course, even if that did influence Sony I'm sure the last thing you'd want is to send Anonymous the message that they can push you around so don't bother waiting for admission/explanation.

Looking at this list, there's far better targets of groups of lawyers and lobbyists that don't do a goddamn thing or sell any tangible product. Not sure why those wouldn't be prioritized by Anonymous but, well, that's crowdsourcing for you. Maybe they identified Sony as the biggest fish that would disrupt the highest number of placated sheep who might actually contact their senator when their opiate flow is disturbed? Nahhhh...

And until [insert browser of choice here] further obfuscates the navigation bar into oblivion you can sneak a peek at where the link goes before you click it. I, for one, do not blindly dive into water, drive my car or click links without knowing what comes next.

PS: fuck tinyURL and it's ilk. Just bury the long URL under [HERE} [w3schools.com].

There's also the other form where the links are spread over the words such as "There is many tech [engadget.com] web [anandtech.com] sites [tomshardware.com]".:)

Not a big deal, but people could give it just a little thought in general. It forces you to hover over all the links and makes the page harder to read if it's printed. A good rule of thumb could be that the same text should also work completely without the links around the words.

Short answer: If Sony had felt threatened by Anonymous, it would only have strengthened their resolve.

No, IMHO the reason these corporations have withdrawn their support may be twofold, one may just be because they are starting to realize that SOPA may very well backfire on them legally. With SOPA there is no real competition left, and in that environment, what you can do to your competitors, they can do to you just as well.

However the most recent event, which I think shaped their decision, is the customer reaction to GoDaddy's support for SOPA. That told them that customers are actually willing talking with their wallet, and when they do, it can hurt them.

SONY is only one player. I just got off the phone leaving voice mail for some others on the list. Call them. Write them. Let your voice be heard. Give examples. First I told them I understood that piracy of film and music is a problem. I then told them I could shut down Slashdot, Picasa, Photobucket, Makezine, and many anti scam websites, etc for posting photos and text that users shared but did not make. Sites I use to promote my work would be shut down if this passes. Make it clear that the piracy is a problem, but the proposed solution would shut down sites individuals use. We do not need the Internet to become just another TV or radio station for big media. The Internet would be of no use if that happens.

Slashdot could be shut down for most everything placed in quotes. This is WRONG.

Uhhh...did you ever stop to think that making the net another cable channel was THE POINT there Chuck? never before in our history has people been able to be heard by the masses without kissing the ring, they've owned radio and print and TV for decades but with the tubes and net radio and a bazillion other outlets the gatekeepers of media can't assrape the artist and enslave them like they used to. And BTW enslaved is a VERY perfect word, because despite "artists" like Metalicock thinking their are making t

Sony and its leaders are pretty arrogant. They know any attack is temporary. They might have to stop online sales or the collection of sales/personal data on internet connected servers or things like that, but it wouldn't otherwise faze them.

No, what I think got to them is the tremendous and mobile public response made against the likes of Go Daddy. I'm ever so proud of our internet. And by internet, I don't mean the network devices, ISPs and other business and government presence. I mean the people who use it. You reading this now are the internet... the 'series of tubes' that you are.:)

The internet is really coming into its own as a force for public expression and more importantly for change in the public's interest. It's the last chance the world really has for "peaceful revolution" as it were. For a lot of us, we imagine there will be jack-boots marching across the US and small groups of resistance everywhere. It's not that hard to imagine really. But lately, it seems the business interests which pay [read: buy] the government is having its money supply threatened. That's where the real fear comes into play.

Fact is, most of all this 'online piracy' is over things which aren't necessary for life. It's entertainment. There will always be entertainment even if we have to sing and play it for ourselves. (YouTube has proven that well enough I think) If people get pissed off enough to boycott any of them in large numbers for any amount of time, they will not just interrupt cash flow for the short term, people will begin to realize that a world without Sony or Nintendo would be... not so different... not so bad. And believe me -- a Linux based F/OSS console and gaming network would spring up so fast with Google's Android as the core, it would become a huge game changer.

They can't afford to piss off their customers any longer. THAT's the fear you are witnessing them act on.

You reading this now are the internet... the 'series of tubes' that you are.:)

I like the extrapolation: my body is a series of tubes that allow communication between remote parts of my body. The internet is similar, in that it allows communication between remote parts of the world. I really like the biological metaphor, because it truly is like the world is developing into a new organism. A much larger, much harder-to-destroy organism. (For the karma, it's something like a car as well.;)

And believe me -- a Linux based F/OSS console and gaming network would spring up so fast with Google's Android as the core, it would become a huge game changer.

Who would make long-form, high-production-value video games for such a platform? Video games distributed as free software and most games on the phone app stores tend to be short-form, the kind of game that has its beginning, middle, and end in 5 to 10 minute plays. But where's the free counterpart to Super Mario Galaxy or Twilight Princess or the single-player campaign of Call of Doody, erm, Duty series?

I understand angst. I understand outrage. I understand wanting to "do something about it."

But Anonymous is a voice without a mission. They and the Occupy protesters expect the world to change policy on a dime just because they've suddenly discovered that the world sucks and the greedy get away with it.

They can both take a spin. The movement to fight the US DEA's dogmatic persecution of cannabis users and patients began before I was born. It's been a multi-generational battle, with each generation

"They have tabled no viable proposals or suggestions." - Define "viable." Did you not see the signs and hear the "I propose..." statements of their general assemblies? There are plenty more proposals and suggestions that they've posted on the internet, too, and some of them make far more sense than anything I've seen from our "representatives" lately.

"They have no speakers informing the public." - So all the youtube videos from Anon, the protestors with signs, the country-wide gatherings to SPEAK and I

So if a bunch of dirty squatters have to get in the public's face for a couple of months before the police will pull out the rubber bullets and mace to get rid of them, I should take their word at face value and be outraged that their right to free speech was violated? Pfft.

You and others who share this viewpoint are the reason oppression is allowed to happen. Turning a blind eye to others' suffering or injustice simply because you disagree with their causes, appearance, or perceived lack of hygiene is something Edmund Burke would have denounced as "despicable."

I'd fight for your right to protest the gathering of "dirty squatters," and the founding principles of our country expect you to do the same for them.

Do you mean the business software alliance which supposedly MS and others got them to change their mind but afaik nothing was done in the ESA and I get the impression MS did it more for PR because they went from being nice guys for not supporting SOPA to people being informed they were part of a group that supported it so they did what they had to due to consumer pressure.

There have been a lot of articles specifically about Microsoft and Apple pushing the ESA to back off SOPA. There may be some dissension in the ranks.

Don't know about Apple but you can understand why with MSFT as piracy is their bestest friend! just look at how quick they backed off that reduced functionality mode on Vista when it looked like the pirates would stay on XP, having the number of websites reporting MSFT OSes having no way to distinguish pirate versions from legit gives MSFT higher numbers which helps them sell more copies to OEMs. Can you imagine how quickly someone would invest in Linux to come up with a version that worked for the masses if Windows piracy was ended tomorrow and everyone had to pay retail? Hell Windows 7 is easier to pirate than XP and Vista ever was!

These companies are starting to realize that SOPA is a good way to shoot themselves in the head because the one that is a pirate now ends up being a paying customer later with the knowledge to use their software, just ask adobe with PhotoShop. i bet every Photoshop customer was a one time kid that pirated the thing and by the time they got out into the world the had PS skills which meant more customers for Adobe. Wasn't it Gates that said "If they are gonna pirate i want them to pirate from us"? I know I saw Ballmer a few years ago give an interview where he said flat footed to the effect "I couldn't care less about some kid passing a copy of XP around the dorm room, i care about the boat coming from Manila with pirate copies that are so good i can't tell them apart" because he knew that piracy keeps people using MSFT software!

I just wish Ballmer wasn't such a dipshit as he had literally tripped over a way to end Windows piracy in the west and let it slip away. That $50 Win 7 HP upgrade which would install on a clean drive frankly was amazing, I saw guys who had NEVER owned a legit Windows suddenly all running legal copies of Windows. Its just a damned shame these companies can't see what Valve saw years ago, which is the trick is not to ruin the web with draconian laws trying to end piracy but to get the pirates switched over into paying users. I'd love to see what kind of money they made off the Xmas sale this year as i bet it was truly insane because by making their service cheap and easy it literally is easier to buy from Steam than pirate anymore. Too bad the others like the MPAA can't seem to catch that clue.

Funny as I actually was given Vista as a beta tester and ended up giving it away as i could not STAND the bloated POS and instead stayed with XP x64 (which is still a damned nice OS BTW, my youngest is still running it, solid as a rock) until Oct 09 when Win 7 went OEM. I agree that Win 7 does rock as everytime I'm forced to use XP I feel like I'm back on Win98, man I miss jumplists and breadcrumbs and libraries. That don't change the fact though that MSFT could have ended OS piracy in the west with the $50

Business Software Alliance (BSA) supports SOPA and of course their biggest supporters and founding members Apple and Microsoft.

a recent BSA bulletin:

The Business Software Alliance today commended House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) for introducing the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (H.R. 3261) to curb the growing rash of software piracy and other forms of intellectual property theft that are being perpetrated by illicit websites.

Did you even read the link? They're still supporting it, although not in the current form, ONLY now that there is a large stink about it. Did they not read what they were endorsing before? How about withdrawing support entirely? Too many of these companies involved and simply playing lip service. It's like saying "We promise to do our best!" promises, especially from a corporation, are not legally binding. So how is this backing off support if they want to work on it?

Interesting people have not noticed that Sony Music is still on the list.Also, I noticed the National Sheriff's Association is also on the list. Guess my yearly donation will now be going to a better org.

Now the question I have is that if SOPA passes, how long do you think it will take for every business that supports it to have some sort of infringing material?"Oh look Sony, I can tell by the metadata in your websites header image that some intern you hired years ago used a pirated version of Photoshop....

Well, of course. They still support it, they just don't want to announce that they support it and all the bad press, gamer retaliatation and vigilante attacks (ie., anonymous) that that implies, so they hide behind an industry trade group.

Yes, but ultimately this is hardly the only abusive practice that the ESA has supported over the years. They might not be as abusive and generally evil as the BSA, but that doesn't mean that they aren't above tampering with the Wikipedia to deliver their own propaganda.

On the other hand, I presume without some sort of agreement from EA, Sony and Nintendo, that the ESA would not officially be able to support the bill. Those three probably comprise the vast bulk of the power of the ESA. Note that while several music companies are in the list as well, but the RIAA is not.

I would say omission from the list of supporters is a step in the right direction, but actively speaking out against the bill is what would really count. As it stands there is a lot of ambiguity in their

With all the media coverage over online communities like Reddit and Anonymous threatening companies in a very real way.... Maybe 2012 is the year crowdsourcing rebellion is here to stay? Happy New Year Slashdot!

Please, most people have no clue what Reddit is, what Slashdot is, and they only know of Anonymous because of the Fox11 report. They know of SOPA because there are commercials urging them to support it, but they have no idea what exactly they are supporting, except that they have been told it will "create jobs." There will be no year of crowdsourcing; more likely, 2012 will be another "year that the Internet became less free as corporations found more ways to monetize it."

Not to mention that the people visiting these "no clue" sites also have connections to the clueless. I can use social network A to inform my friends about a thing, and they can use network B to inform their friends, and some of us might even gripe about these things over morning coffee in the real world. The speed of information has made the planet a whole lot smaller, and being pessimistic about any one facet in particular is missing the forest for the trees.

I suspect that the list of objectors is much longer than that of supporters. It would be good to see that, too. It would be especially good for Congress to see that side-by-side with the list of supporters.
Bill

If you're not with them, you're against them, right? If you're not a supporter, you must be an objector. So... the objectors are... everyone else? When you look at it that way, three pages is an awfully short list.

Interestingly enough, it's probably more true than we realize. Consider the very small portion of the population that has a fetish for all things scatological. Given the fundamentally repulsive nature of the subject it's reasonable to assume that everyone else objects to all things scatologica

We've bemoaned our inability to influence the political system, but here we see a striking example of the population rising up and affecting specific government actions.

Public outcry stopped the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, or at least it helped. Similarly, public outcry attempted to hurt Bank of America and GoDaddy over their political beliefs.

If we can make this work it will give us the fine control over government that we have been missing. We've been able to affect small companies - HBGary [arstechnica.com], Stratfor [nytimes.com], Ocean Marketing [kotaku.com], Sony [arstechnica.com]. (OK, Sony isn't that small, but it was a slice of Sony much smaller than BOA.)

Future companies may need to think twice before supporting oppressive or corrupt legislation - if only because of the chance that the people will rise up and hurt their bottom line.

We haven't had an effect on the really big companies yet (BOA), but I'm hoping that this grows to be a worldwide trend. We need to install a healthy dose of respect for public opinion. To put it succinctly, the companies have to fear the possibility of public retribution, both legal and extra-legal.

This will give us the power to affect legislation, to control the corruption. This will put government back in the hands of the people.

"Damn near guarantee" in this context seems more like "I don't have proof".

I'm fairly confident that corporate donations are usually higher than individual, but I wouldn't assert it as a fact unless I had... facts.

Anyway, I think it's not so terrible. The candidate that is probably going to win, will innately attract more donations by people currying favor. The correlation there may not be causation. Also, there is no corporate donation that isn't, at some point, decided by an individual.

Actually, it's not just the "campaign" money, it's the promise of a cushy job afterwards, and also Corps being able to pull favors for you with other congressmen who are already in their pockets. For facts, why just look at FCC members becoming *AA Goons, or just maybe search for lobbyist owns congress [citizensnewsdaily.com].

Another way to see this is that candidate who raised the most money also had the most number of supporters...

Only if contributions to, and spending on behalf, of candidates were limited to private donations with a fairly low cap so that it was actually number of supporters that determined revenue.

We do not have that situation. Corporations can now spend unlimited sums to promote a candidate. Wall Street firms with thousands of employees making high 6 figures (and up) have methods of bundling 'voluntary' maximum contributions (far above what 90% of Americans could afford) from their employees into huge packages of

Banks are not required to give out cash immediately. In cases where their fractional reserve is in peril, they can delay payouts for some period of time (IIRC it's on the order of 24-48 hours, but this has probably changed over the years).

They use the extra time to get a large dollop of cash from the nearest federal reserve branch. The system is set up specifically to prevent a run on the bank, which is what you are suggesting.

Thanks, and I agree -- it's not an original idea to devise some sort of financial IED to slow down the invaders/occupiers/imperialists/etc.

I'm not aware of any of these actions being illegal, but you can bet that the establishment will take a very dim view. They will begin by arresting people for trumped up charges (arresting peaceful people in line at the bank for trespassing, or public nuisance), then passing laws which make this behaviour specifically illegal.

I somewhat like the idea of it becoming harder and harder to both run a bank, and be a customer. I think if the people making the rules had a systemic view, they would instead make the leverage-based business model illegal. Rather than the paying customers' collective actions. Because failure is built in to the system (hence the systemic view is required, because look

Is this the beginning of the end of SOPA? EA, Sony, Nintendo and others pulling support. Maybe the ESA itself will pull support if enough of its members do. I hear Microsoft and other ESA members are pressuring them to abandon SOPA...

The only support that matters to senators is private and the most important to them... money.

The only think that I can think of that might work is an organized group that publicized what politicians supported and stopped a him from being reelected but in a way that they could take credit. A politicians would listen to them then.

In this modern era what I would most want to see is direct democracy. We don't really need senators or representati

Withdrawing support is all fine and good. But companies who don't like SOPA shouldn't just rest at not supporting it. They should be actively against it, and make it clear in public statements, along with why they're against it. Whether they believe in free speech not being infringed (unlikely), don't like that SOPA will break the internet in the long run, or they just say they don't support it because it will cost them money, they need to say so. Any of these reasons are valid, and public awareness would i

I explained it to one friend thusly (she's a nerd, but not a computer nerd): "It would, for example, allow Nintendo to sue and possibly shut down Facebook over the photo you posted of your (DIY) Pikachu sweater."

Will SOPA affect the usage of the internet for people outside of the USA, but where a recursive DNS query might happen to travel through it (for example, somebody in mexico finding a domain that is based in Canada, or vice versa)?

It's been suggested that people who utilize DNSSEC can simply ignore SOPA, because SOPA explicitly states that nobody is required to make significant changes to their software or facilities to comply with it. Will organizations that use DNSSEC be later dragged into court for "

Checking the list of supporters vs. the legislative agenda of the organization shows some gaps.

Congressional Fire Services Institute [cfsi.org], the lobby for firefighters. SOPA isn't on their list of legislation they support. Their list, reasonably, has legislation about fire safety, pay, and spectrum for first responders.

There is definitely a trend in which the product purchased is managed not those who have pride in making a good product, but by those who would go to any lengths possible to take acquire all of ones wealth. Personally, I grow tired of products that remind me of grinning show offs.

I'm posting this from the future -- it's already 2012 in this part of the world (woohoo!)

I wrote my first column for 2012 today and in it I speculate that SOPA, if it's passed into law, might just be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

While governments all over the world seek to control, regulate, restrict and constrain the internet so as to protect their own power to impose ideologies on those who elect them to power, I have a feeling that SOPA could be just one step too far and might act as a catalyst

You know that "You wouldn't download a car" adage? Well, Jesus would and could.

He distributed illegal copies of bread and fish (see, no theft, just copying) depriving fishermen and bakers of their profits and circumvented DRM to upgrade water to wine bypassing the winery and proper grapes fermentation process.

Nobody is selling lawfully made copies of Mother 3 or Song of the South, so does that give people the right to pirate? I agree that rights should come with responsibilities, and I too believe in copyresponsibility, such that published works should continue to remain available; it just happens not to be the law of the land.

People no longer need to invest in unknown quantities. They can take projects directly to the public and get funding, and the public gets products they want without the middlemen of distribution. Since they are paying for the costs of production up front, nobody can bitch and moan about what gets lost by copies made later.

You forgot the IP! You can be omni-efficient and omni-organized and still fail if you haven't paid the omnipresent patent trolls. Looks as if the process of ascertaining a level of hunger and giving an allotment of bread and wine to cure the affliction may soon be patentable, as well.WWJD? [techdirt.com]

Well, technically The Bible (most versions) isn't copyrightable due to the sheer age of the publication (it was the very first book off of Gutenberg's first press, FFS).

Maybe they thought SOPA would screw that up in some way?

I'm only half joking, but did want to raise the point that copyright laws have a nasty habit of unintended consequences, and maybe some crafty soul (bless him) scared 'em into thinking that they couldn't copy off and pass around hymns and such anymore.

technically The Bible (most versions) isn't copyrightable due to the sheer age of the publication

Most English translations of the Christian Bible in common use, other than the 1611 King James Version, are post-1922 and therefore copyrighted [examiner.com]. Even the KJV is subject to copyright-like exclusive rights in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

You have a good point about the IBEW, electrical codes and standards. The code and standards publishing bodies guard their products jealously. And they do chase down people who violate their copyrights aggressively. Sometimes too aggressively, if one assumes 'fair use' and quotes too extensively from their publications.

The NFPA [nfpa.org], the publisher of various electrical, safety and fire codes also provides training and (at one time, maybe not anymore) offered a code interpretation service (which may have come dangerously close to providing engineering services without a license). As such, they are in direct competition with other training and engineering service providers. Armed with SOPA, they could pretty much shut down any competing services. Or at least drive them off the 'Net. The IEEE [ieee.org] holds a similar position in that many ordinances simply cite their standards in statutes or regulations and expect anyone having to comply with said regulations to cough up $$$ to obtain a copy.

Obligatory bad car analogy: Think of a world where traffic laws just referred to some AAA [aaa.com] driving handbook, available only to paying members.

I'm sure that there are many analogous examples in different professions where one quasi-official publisher could effectively control their industry given sufficient ammunition.

Publicly funding their code-making function would be a start. And the whole "independent organizations" thing is questionable when my legislature rubber stamps their product as a government regulation. The government is the customer for their product. The government should pay. Once they have to fund the process (instead of passing costs on to a minority of the voting public), they might stop buying into every silly little revision that gets issued.

I turned my back on the NFL when they went all gung-ho on the second Iraq war. They have since backed off that stance to a degree (most likely due to the Pat Tillman [wikipedia.org] backlash), but I found that I really didn't miss their product all that much. I still don't. I don't actively avoid it any longer, but I also don't seek it out. American football (not just the NFL) is a series of kludges designed to keep the game from getting too lopsided toward either offense OR defense -- no major sports league in the world c